The Senate's rejection of expanded background checks for gun buyers was an act of cowardice and a catalyst for carnage.

Those 46 senators who voted against it gave a green light to the next Adam Lanza or James Holmes. They're NRA lapdogs.

The gun lobby won a battle, but not the war. More can be done by political leaders and journalists to defeat mass murder enablers. Gun control advocates in Congress must pressure the Treasury and Justice departments to probe and challenge the NRA's tax-exempt status. How can an outfit that spends $100 million on lobbying and pays its CEO nearly $1 million a year, qualify as a non-profit social welfare organization? Taxpayers should not foot the bill for 32,000 gun deaths a year.

Journalists should also follow the money, just like Woodward and Bernstein did in the Watergate scandal 40 years ago. They must track every blood money bribe the NRA paid individual legislators and how these representatives voted on gun control measures. Focus must be centered on the five rogue Senate Democrats who abandoned their party and defied the will of 90 percent of U.S. voters.

We're entitled to know the current price for selling your soul to the gun lobby and acting as a cheerleader for child killers.Sincerely